The misuse of alcohol inflicts a major toll on individual users, their families, and the wider society. This includes disruptions of family life, violence, absenteeism and problems in the workplace, child neglect and abuse, and excess morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol ranks eighth among global risk factors for death and is the third leading global risk factor for disease and disability. In the United States, alcohol dependence affects four to five percent of the population at (...) any given time. Alcohol dependence also exacts a significant financial toll.... (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

We present a synthetic theory of skilled action which proposes that cognitive processes make an important contribution to almost all skilled action, contrary to influential views that many skills are performed largely automatically. Cognitive control is focused on strategic aspects of performance, and plays a greater role as difficulty increases. We offer an analysis of various forms of skill experience and show that the theory provides a better explanation for the full set of these experiences than automatic theories. We further (...) show that the theory can explain experimental evidence for skill automaticity, including evidence that secondary tasks do not interfere with expert performance, and evidence that experts have reduced memory for performance of sensorimotor skills. (shrink)

There is abundant evidence of contextual variation in the use of “S knows p.” Contextualist theories explain this variation in terms of semantic hypotheses that refer to standards of justification determined by “practical” features of either the subject’s context (Hawthorne & Stanley) or the ascriber’s context (Lewis, Cohen, & DeRose). There is extensive linguistic counterevidence to both forms. I maintain that the contextual variation of knowledge claims is better explained by common pragmatic factors. I show here that one is variable (...) strictness. “S knows p” is commonly used loosely to implicate “S is close enough to knowing p for contextually indicated purposes.” A pragmatic account may use a range of semantics, even contextualist. I use an invariant semantics on which knowledge requires complete justification. This combination meets the Moorean constraint as well as any linguistic theory should, and meets the intuition constraint much better than contextualism. There is no need for ad hoc error theories. The variation in conditions of assertability and practical rationality is better explained by variably strict constraints. It will follow that “S knows p” is used loosely to implicate that the condition for asserting “p” and using it in practical reasoning are satisfied. (shrink)

This article provides a detailed overview of the neuroscience of consciousness.

Reliabilism has come under recent attack for its alleged inability to account for the value we typically ascribe to knowledge. It is charged that a reliably-produced true belief has no more value than does the true belief alone. I reply to these charges on behalf of reliabilism; not because I think reliabilism is the correct theory of knowledge, but rather because being reliably-produced does add value of a sort to true beliefs. The added value stems from the fact that a (...) reliably-held belief is non-accidental in a particular way. While it is widely acknowledged that accidentally true beliefs cannot count as knowledge, it is rarely questioned why this should be so. An answer to this question emerges from the discussion of the value of reliability; an answer that holds interesting implications for the value and nature of knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn keeping with the dominant view that skills are largely automatic, the standard view of memory systems distinguishes between a representational declarative system associated with cognitive processes and a performance-based procedural system. The procedural system is thought to be largely responsible for the performance of well-learned skilled actions. Here we argue that most skills do not fully automate, which entails that the declarative system should make a substantial contribution to skilled performance. To support this view, we review evidence showing that (...) the declarative system does indeed play a number of roles in skilled action. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the theory that knowledge is credit-worthy true belief against a family of objections, one of which was leveled against it in a recent paper by Jennifer Lackey. In that paper, Lackey argues that testimonial knowledge is problematic for the credit-worthiness theory because when person A comes to know that p by way of the testimony of person B, it would appear that any credit due to A for coming to believe truly that p belongs to (...) the testifier, B, rather than the hearer, A. If so, then knowledge would appear not to be a matter of credit for true belief. I think that the problem this raises actually has little to do with the fact that the knowledge comes by way of testimony, and that similar objections can be formulated in terms of perceptual and memorial knowledge. I will attempt to neutralize these objections by drawing a distinction between credit as praiseworthiness and credit as attributability. (shrink)

This paper outlines an original interactivist-constructivist approach to modelling intelligence and learning as a dynamical embodied form of adaptiveness and explores some applications of I-C to understanding the way cognitive learning is realized in the brain. Two key ideas for conceptualizing intelligence within this framework are developed. These are: intelligence is centrally concerned with the capacity for coherent, context-sensitive, self-directed management of interaction; and the primary model for cognitive learning is anticipative skill construction. Self-directedness is a capacity for integrative process (...) modulation which allows a system to "steer" itself through its world by anticipatively matching its own viability requirements to interaction with its environment. Because the adaptive interaction processes required of intelligent systems are too complex for effective action to be prespecified learning is an important component of intelligence. A model of self-directed anticipative learning is formulated based on interactive skill construction, and argued to constitute a central constructivist process involved in cognitive development. SDAL illuminates the capacity of intelligent learners to start with the vague, poorly defined problems typically posed in realistic learning situations and progressively refine them, transforming them into problems with sufficient structure to guide the construction of a solution. Finally, some of the implications of I-C for modelling of the neuronal basis of intelligence and learning are explored; in particular, Quartz and Sejnowski's recent neural constructivism paradigm, enriched by Montague and Sejnowski's dopaminergic model of anticipative-predictive neural learning, is assessed as a promising, but incomplete, contribution to this approach. The paper concludes with a fourfold reflection on the divergence in cognitive modelling philosophy between the I-C and the traditional computational information processing approaches. (shrink)

forthcoming 2007 in New Waves in Epistemology, Vincent Hendricks & Duncan Pritchard, eds.

The nature of the cognition-motor interface has been brought to prominence by Butterfill & Sinigaglia, who argue that the representations employed by the cognitive and motor systems should not be able to interact with each other. Here I argue that recent empirical evidence concerning the interface contradicts several of the assumptions incorporated in Butterfill & Sinigaglia’s account, and I seek to develop a theoretical picture that will allow us to explain the structure of the interface presented by this evidence. The (...) central idea is that neural plasticity incorporates metarepresentational rules for constructing representational systems and linking them. The structure of the cognition-motor interface is constructed flexibly during development and skill learning based on information processing demands. (shrink)

The causal theory of reasons holds that acting for a reason entails that the agents action was caused by his or her beliefs and desires. While Donald Davidson (1963) and others effectively silenced the first objections to the theory, a new round has emerged. The most important recent attack is presented by Jonathan Dancy in Practical Reality (2000) and subsequent work. This paper will defend the causal theory against Dancy and others, including Schueler (1995), Stoutland (1999, 2001), and Ginet (2002).Dancy (...) observes that our reasons are neither psychological states nor causes, and that our reasons can be both motivating and normative. I argue that these observations are fully compatible with the causal theory. According to the reductive version I develop for both cognitive and optative reasons, what it is for an action to be done for a reason is for certain beliefs and desires to cause the action in a particular way. Our reasons for action are the objects of some of those beliefs and desires. The causal process has two stages. This theory explains not only Dancys observations, but also many other facts about reasons that alternative theories leave unexplained. I argue against Schueler and others that the non-appetitive desires entailed by acting for reasons are no less distinct and independent causal factors than the beliefs entailed. I go on to rebut arguments that the relation between psychological states and actions cannot be causal because it is non-empirical, rational, normative, or non-deterministic, and that explanations in terms of psychological causes are incompatible with explanations in terms of reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that the prima facie conflict between special relativity and the quantum-mechanical collapse postulate is only apparent, and that the seemingly incompatible accounts of entangled systems undergoing collapse yielded by different reference frames can be regarded as no more than differing accounts of the same processes and events. Attention to the transformation properties of quantum-mechanical states undergoing unitary, non-collapse evolution points the way to a treatment of collapse evolution consistent with the demands of relativity. r (...) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The idea that english has more than one declarative "mood" has been dismissed as superstitious by empirically-minded grammarians of english for centuries--with such spectacular unsuccess, however, that the indicative/subjunctive dichotomy stands today as a cornerstone for philosophical and logical speculation about "conditionals." let me be next into the breach. i shall urge that there is no grammatical basis for any such distinction. and as for the particular adjudications of mood logicians and philosophers actually propose, there is neither rhyme nor reason (...) to them. my bent, then, is basically destructive. but i shall also be outlining a better taxonomy. (shrink)

Jennings and Nanay argue against my claim that action entails attention by providing putative counterexamples to the claim that action entails a Many–Many Problem. This reply demonstrates that they have misunderstood the central notion of a pure reflex on which my argument depends. A simplified form of the argument from pure reflex to the Many–Many Problem as a necessary feature of agency is given, and putative counterexamples of action without attention are addressed. Attention is present in every action. In passing, (...) the reply discusses how we should assess intuitive claims about attention and mental processing, with emphasis on learning and the automatization of attention in its development as a skill. (shrink)

The nature of the cognition-motor interface has been brought to prominence by Butterfill & Sinigaglia, who argue that the representations employed by the cognitive and motor systems should not be able to interact with each other. Here I argue that recent empirical evidence concerning the interface contradicts several of the assumptions incorporated in Butterfill & Sinigaglia’s account, and I seek to develop a theoretical picture that will allow us to explain the structure of the interface presented by this evidence. The (...) central idea is that neural plasticity incorporates metarepresentational rules for constructing representational systems and linking them. The structure of the cognition-motor interface is constructed flexibly during development and skill learning based on information processing demands. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that there are (at least) two fundamental epistemic goals: believing truths, and avoiding the acceptance of falsehoods. As has been often noted, these goals are in conflict with one another. Moreover, the norms governing rational belief that we should derive from these two goals depend on how we weight them relative to one another. However, it is not obvious that there is one objectively correct weighting for everyone in all circumstances. Indeed, as I shall argue, it (...) looks as though there are circumstances in which a range of possible weightings of the two goals are all equally epistemically rational. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why Talk About Open‐Mindedness? Desiderata for an Account of Open‐Mindedness Accounts of Open‐Mindedness The Puzzles The Open‐Minded Agent A Final Reckoning Conclusion References.

First, a joke that was circulating among academics a couple of years ago. In the version I heard, a Texan is walking across Harvard Yard. He stops a guy and asks him, in his nasal drawl, “Can you tell me where the library’s at?” The guy looks him up and down, pauses, and says, “At Harvard we do not end our sentences with prepositions.” The Texan apologizes, saying, “Excuse me. Can you tell me where the library’s at, asshole?”This story may (...) seem far removed from the subject of this essay, which is supposed to be a serious one. But what is the joke about, after all, if not the seriousness of language, its power, and the demystification of that power by our native brand of deconstructionist, the shrewd rube?[…]If we find the joke funny, I imagine that the experience with which most of us identify is this: we want the gumption to reject an arrogant cultural authority. This experience may be especially appealing to students, but it also may appeal to intellectuals conscious of those problems of power and knowledge that have been so celebrated in recent years. In fact, if Friedrich Nietzsche was right in suggesting that grammar is a metaphysical discipline comparable to God, then the pleasure of this joke may lie in its humiliation of law, pure and simple. Sigmund Freud, among others, has suggested that figures of authority in jokes are only stand-ins of that general power of society over all individuals which is contested in the very form of the joke. Thus, following Freud, or, say, those who have made Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of carnival so popular a topic of academic discussion, we could see enjoyment of this joke as representing a momentary rebellion against every form of culture that, as the saying goes, it imposed upon us. From that perspective, even my use here of this joke is bound to seem ridiculous; indeed, academic psychologists who write on laughter and humor often preface their discussions with defensive remarks about people who find it funny to see intellectuals seriously and laboriously analyzing jokes.1 1. See, e.g., Anthony J. Chapman and Hugh C. Foot, eds., It’s a Funny Thing, Humour , and Paul E. McGhee and Jeffrey H. Goldstein, eds., Handbook of Humor Research, 2 vols. . Daniel Cottom is associate professor of English at Wayne State University. He is the author of The Civilized Imagination and is currently working on a study of the politics of interpretation. (shrink)

It will startle no one to hear that there is widespread disagreement among philosophers about the nature and criteria of epistemic justification. There are many distinct notions of epistemic justification, distinguished from one another in a bewildering variety of ways. There are internalist justification, externalist justification, coherentist justification, foundationalist justification, deontic justification, consequentialist justification, propositional justification, doxastic justification, personal justification, situational justification, objective justification, subjective justification, cognitive justification, and structural justification. None of these is quite equivalent to another, yet each (...) is proposed as a way in which something can be epistemically justified. (shrink)

Current epistemological dogma has it that the twin goalsof believing truths and avoiding errors exhaust our cognitive aspirations.On such a view, (call it the TG view) the only evaluationsthat count as genuinely epistemological are those that evaluatesomething (a belief, believer, set of beliefs, a cognitivetrait or process, etc.) in terms of its connection to thesetwo goods. In particular, this view implies that all theepistemic value of knowledge must be derived from thevalue of the two goals cited in TG. I argue (...) thatthis implication is false, and thus that the TG view must be abandoned. I propose a candidate to replacethe TG view that makes better sense of the value ofknowledge. (shrink)

In this paper we outline a theory of normative functionality aimed at understanding the nature of adaptive systems as globally structured, integrated systems. More specifically, the account is concerned with understanding the process relations constitutive of such systems. The explanatory agenda of this approach includes the following questions.

Donald Campbell has long advocated a naturalist epistemology based on a general selection theory, with the scope of knowledge restricted to vicarious adaptive processes. But being a vicariant is problematic because it involves an unexplained epistemic relation. We argue that this relation is to be explicated organizationally in terms of the regulation of behavior and internal state by the vicariant, but that Campbell's selectionist approach can give no satisfactory account of it because it is opaque to organization. We show how (...) organizational constraints and capacities are crucial to understanding both evolution and cognition and conclude with a proposal for an enriched, generalized model of evolutionary epistemology that places high-order regulatory organization at the center. (shrink)

Structuring Mind: The Nature of Attention and How It Shapes Consciousness, by WatzlSebastian. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 322.

Joining the modern-postmodern debate, this book suggests that the polarizing polemics of the radical postmodernists who once dominated the discussion have given way to a new critical postmodernism characterized by dialogue, accommodation, and synthesis. A comprehensive survey, Negotiating Postmodernism also marks the arrival of a powerful, critical presence on the scene, one that advances the idea of a late modern-postmodern social and cultural transition.

It is not usual to think of Fichte as a logician, nor indeed to think of him as leaving a legacy that shaped the subsequent history of symbolic logic. But I argue here that there is such a legacy, and that Fichte formulated an agenda in formal logic that his students (and their students in turn) used to spark a logical revolution. That revolution arguably reached its culmination in the logical writings of Franz Brentano, better known as a founding figure (...) of the phenomenological movement. In logical writings that were published only posthumously, but that were fully elaborated in the decade prior to the publication of Frege’s Begriffschrift, Brentano (together with his collaborator Anton Marty) developed a radically innovative logical calculus that was explicitly designed to overthrow the orthodox logical analysis of judgment and inference. At the center of this revolution was the notion of thetic judgment [thetische Urteil], a form of judgment upon which Fichte had insisted in the first published version of the Wissenschaftslehre, and which his students subsequently set out to accommodate within the framework provided by Kant’s general logic. But thetic judgment proved resistant to such assimilation, and it was left to Brentano to use the analysis of thetic judgment in his attempt to topple a long-standing logical tradition. In what follows I reconstruct the main episodes in this century-long drama in the logical theory of judgment. My discussion is divided into four sections. I begin with a review of Fichte’s most explicit call for logical revolution, together with his introduction of the notion of thetic judgment, set against the backdrop of an anomaly. (shrink)

We investigate flexibility and problem solving in skilled action. We conducted a field study of mountain bike riding that required a learner rider to cope with major changes in technique and equipment. Our results indicate that relatively inexperienced individuals can be capable of fairly complex 'on-the-fly' problem solving which allows them to cope with new conditions. This problem solving is hard to explain for classical theories of skill because the adjustments are too large to be achieved by automatic mechanisms and (...) too complex and rapid to be achieved by cognitive processes as they are usually understood. A recent theory, Mesh, can explain these results because it posits that skill-specific cognitive abilities develop during skill learning and that control typically involves an interplay between cognitive and automatic mechanisms. Here we develop Mesh further, providing a detailed explanation for these problem solving abilities. We argue that causal representation, metacognitive awareness and other forms of performance awareness combine in the formulation and control of action strategies. We also argue that the structure of control present in this case is inconsistent with Bratman's model of intentions, and that, in the face of high uncertainty and risk, intentions can be much more labile than Bratman recognises. In addition, we found limitations and flaws in problem solving which illuminate the representations involved. Finally, we highlight the crucial role of social and cultural learning in the development of complex skills. (shrink)